West Belfast is the car crime capital of Northern Ireland, despite the success of a major police crackdown, official statistics showed today.
Car crime accounted for almost 10 per cent of all crime recorded in the area and 7.5 per cent of all vehicles stolen in Northern Ireland were taken from the area - 22 per cent of all vehicles recovered in the province were found in west Belfast, said police.
They revealed that 354 vehicles had been stolen in the area so far this year and 1,141 recovered there.
Huge police operations have kept the figures down to the current level. They were reduced by 32 per cent last year and 24 per cent so far this year.
A special auto crime team set up in July this year had already made 122 arrests, police revealed.
Acting Superintendent Peter Farrar said car crime was a "scourge on the entire community which brought nothing but misery and waste to people who deserved better".
As the details were released cab drivers from nationalist and loyalist areas of west Belfast banded together today in an unprecedented show of solidarity to protest against car crime.
A motorcade of cabbies wound its way around the city and past City Hall to protest and campaigners are expected to meet PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde next week to discuss the problem.
Campaign co-ordinator Mr Tommy Holland said they wanted to show their abhorrence at what car thieves and joyriders were doing to their community.
Early today a taxi driver became the latest victim of the car thieves.
He was left with a broken nose, fractured eye socket and other injuries when his vehicle was hijacked by three men and a woman who he had picked up in Belfast city centre in the early hours and delivered to Gibson Street in the Lower Falls area.
An effort was also made to seize the cabbie's wallet said police.
PA